SmartPlan with Sasaki

"Bold and poetic design transforms the built environment and the lives of those who inhabit it. In this age of increasing connectivity and immense amounts of information, the question is how designers can leverage information to improve our craft. SmartPlan with Sasaki is a direct response to that challenge. SmartPlan encourages more informed, efficient, and ultimately better design. SmartPlan has revolutionized the urban design process by integrating the creativity and energy of the design team with the power of cutting-edge technology. SmartPlan is innovation in process—reflecting the very nature of innovation itself.

SmartPlan enables Sasaki designers to assist developers and civic leaders in making informed decisions on design strategies for urban development projects. By linking spatial, financial, and environmental data, SmartPlan helps the project team test alternative scenarios and assess their physical, environmental, and fiscal impacts in real time. The planning phase of development at any scale requires that our clients make tough decisions around physical considerations such as parking and density, financial considerations such as revenue generation versus the provision of public amenities, and environmental considerations including stormwater runoff and carbon emissions. SmartPlan helps clients visualize and quantify the trade-offs inherent in these choices. We have utilized this innovative tool on a variety of planning and urban design engagements across the globe.

SmartPlan meets the "do more with less" expectation of today's world—in spite of diminished funding and accelerated project timelines. Its graphic and engaging interface allows greater client and stakeholder participation and understanding. Using SmartPlan, the project team collaborates with clients to visualize complex development concepts, quantify their impacts, and make informed decisions. Design iterations happen in a matter of hours and days, rather than weeks and months. Instead of telling the client which plan or scenario is best, the design team is able to show clients the impacts of major design decisions and test scenarios on the fly, resulting in a more efficient process and increased stakeholder trust and buy-in.

SmartPlan enables the design team to:

• Determine the best framework development by testing alternatives based on a range of density targets

• Test different uses and scenarios at the parcel level and identify opportunities for efficiency and shared resources

• Create a range of building programs that respond to development targets and constraints and assess each program's impacts according to a range of metrics

• Identify optimal phasing for project implementation

• Generate the parking requirements for each program use based on a series of informed assumptions

• Modify the development program within appropriate demand parameters to address traffic issues

• Measure the impacts that design changes will have on the financial attractiveness of the overall development scheme

• Balance the cost of public services with the taxes a proposed development will generate and the economic benefits it will create"